Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Getting things out of the way, part 1

Early January, 2013

I saw one of my former classmates recently at a holiday party.
"How's the job hunt going?"
"Meh", I said.
The next question she uttered with much hesitation.
"So, how many now?"
"845, as of this morning."
Her jaw dropped. "Oh... god.. I can't believe..."

She proceeded to go on how unjust that was, and how talented I am and how much I've done. And then said what everyone says about everything these days:

"You should blog about your job hunt".

I've thought about blogging about my job hunt since it officially began in June, 2011, but I feared I'd come across as a whiny, bitchy curmudgeon.
I didn't want to complain.
I didn't want to be negative.
I didn't want to author an entire blog about job hunting and how shitty it is being unemployed, only to have that blog uncovered by a prospective employer and the prospects be dropped.

But I figure after 18 months and over 850 job applications, I might as well. Hell, I'll even throw on some AdSense ads here and maybe even make money. After all, it's a new year, and if every person who was unemployed started a blog, and read the blogs of all the other employed folks out there, and clicked on the ads, we might get this economy back on track!

(Ha ha. That's a joke. Kind of.)

Oh yeah, the classmate at the party: I had talked to her about two months earlier when a job opened up in the department of city hall she worked in.
She'd gotten the job six months earlier, and I wondered if she had any advice on how to get my resume read.
She was sympathetic, but was bewildered as well.
There was simply no way she, as an employee in this department, could do anything to promote my resume in her office. (And I don't blame her, I've talked to lots of people, especially in government positions, and the tools to dissuade cronyism and nepotism as strong in the US. Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit -er, can't doesn't know what they're talking about.)

At the party, after a strong swig of hot buttered rum, she brings up the job I inquired about.
"Oh, and that job you called about. There were, like, 500 applications. The hiring manager was totally overwhelmed..."

So I thought I'd start a blog.
I really don't want a pity party, just to vent.

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